Barzillai knew that David's court was no place for him; he had been
bred on the mountains of Gilead, and his habits suited only a simple
country life. The court might be better, but he could not fit into it.
But there was his boy Chimham; take him, he was young enough to bend
and mould.
Now this is true in a far loftier way. I need not dwell on the
universality of this law, how it applies to all manner of men, but I
use it now in reference only to the gospel and your relation to it. You
will never again be so likely to become a Christian, if you let these
early days pass.
You say, 'I will have my fling, sow my wild oats, will wait a little
longer, and then'--and then what? You will find that it is infinitely
harder to close with Christ than it would have been before.
While you delay, you are stiffening into the habit of rejection. Custom
is one of our mightiest friends or foes.
While you delay, you are doing violence to conscience, and so weakening
that to which the gospel appeals.
While you delay, you are becoming more familiar with the unreceived
message and so weakening the power of the gospel.
While you delay, you are adding to the long list of your sins.
While you delay, youth is slipping from you.
Make a mark with a straw on the clay and it abides; hammer on the brick
with iron and it only breaks. Youth is a brief season. It is the season
for forming habit, for receiving impression, for building up character.
'The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold, therefore shall he
beg in harvest and have nothing.' Your present time is seed time. God
forbid that I should say that it is impossible, but I do say that it is
hard, for 'a man to be born again when he is old.'
If you do become Christ's servant later in life, your whole condition
will be different from what it would have been if you had begun when
young to trust and love Him. Think of the difficulty of rooting out
habits and memories. Think of the horrid familiarity with evil. Think
of the painful contrition for wasted years, which must be theirs who
are hired at the eleventh hour, after standing all the day idle.
Contrast the experience of him who can say, 'I Thy servant fear God
from my youth,' who has been led by God's mercy from childhood in the
narrow way, who by early faith in Christ has been kept in the slippery
ways of youth.
Of the one we can but say, 'Is not this a brand plucked from the
burning?' The other is 'innocent of much transgression.'
I have small hope of changing middle-aged and old men. To you I turn,
you young men and women, you children, and to each of you I say, 'Wilt
thou not from this time say, My Father, Thou art the guide of my youth?'